Venice masks

Saturday 18 May 2024

Images - Juan Sánchez Peláez

I

You, who likewise
in the cup of your verb
overflow the liquid.
I, who throw your shout over a cliff
when my shade or my night
blow the fire.
Like plateaus
—like that, like
plateaus—
we who beg and howl in our
ice furrows.

II

Lucid weight
        remote and so remote
from the city that’s called
Quebec
where I have never been
then up and down the stairs
I’m carried       I’m carried by a teardrop
and then I find this white window
I put my index finger on it and I think
it’s a lady from Quebec
and I return
  because I’m solitary
because I’m mundane
to make myself tense or not
and I am
I see myself
with the ace of gold tumbling
with the same eyes in the big and small universe.

III

This is the bee: It buzzes the chosen fruit
This time it’s my father: He waits for me in Vigo
(he has to pass in front of the humans
      and make signs to me)
here’s my queen who is the size of the air
and whose skin and touch are time
here is Vicente Gerbasi who brings an owl
from Mount Ávila
and a squirrel of alchemy
And this is me: white and ancient in my book.

Juan Sánchez Peláez (1922 - 2003) Venezuela
Translated by Guillermo Parra
Source: The RumpusThe Rumpus

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